The Ferrari F12 Berlinetta is a certain type of supercar. With its classic V12-engine sitting in front of the driver, and rear wheel drive, think of it as a modern-day ‘Daytona’, a Grand Tourer of the highest order. In production for 5 years from 2012 onwards, the F12 is a car that you need to drive with respect – which is what you don’t see in the accompanying video!
With 6.3-litres of muscle pumping some 730bhp to the back wheels – no turbochargers here, by the way, it’s a classic Ferrari normally-aspirated brute of an engine – you’d think taking care would come naturally to anyone driving one of these, especially on wet roads. Have a look at the guy somewhere in China, who manages to get it all wrong, and hit barriers on both sides!
Traction Control
Like most cars in its class – that is out and out supercars – the 211mph Ferrari F12 does feature traction control and other stability aids. Yet, this Ferrari F12 crash clearly didn’t benefit from those, and it’s most likely the road was too wet. It does appear, however, that whoever was at the wheel simply gave it too much of the right pedal – at the wrong time!
This is what happens when you apply that much power to a rear-wheel driver machine of this type; the back end simply gets away from you, and you are a passenger at the wheel. Once it had been lost, it would never have come back to the driver, no matter how skilled.
It’s notable that the Porsche in the lane to the left manages to avoid the sliding Ferrari – that would have been an expensive tangle of exotic automobiles – but that’s one seriously damaged Ferrari F12 at the end of the accident.
The moral of the story is, as we said, if you’re going to drive your very expensive, rear-wheel drive, V12 Ferrari in the wet, please be careful!
